My top 101! Lotta work and listening went into this, but it was all a ton of fun, so no ragrets. Ranked for the most part but looser the farther you get from 1 or the fewer listens I gave it. ***Format*** rating.score (description) number-of-listens

3.9 (this one really surprised me, super fun little psyched out indie piece that wont really will blow you away with innovation, but that’s not what they’re going for when they just want to make something fun) 4

4.0 (production-wise, this is slower and a bit more bland than the work Elsiane normally do, likely due to Shapero's direction, but it is still quite entrancing and Elsieanne Caplett's voice still blows my mind) 2

4.05 (such a frustrating album, normally I have a strong respect for death metal vocalists who can growl in an intelligible manner, but if you can, you need to make sure your lyrics are up to par and these can get cringey, awesome music behind it for the most part too, the jazzy bits are everything White Ward's 2017 debut should have been) 2

4.1 (as an enjoyable listen this album does really well, but where it truly excels is as as artistic statement with its theme superbly developed over the course of the album, this deserves a higher ranking than 37 but there were just too many other great releases this year) 2

4.1 (an amazing follow up to last year's debut that had a SOTY contender but wasn't quite consistent enough, this on the other hand continues the sound they had down well and adds some progressive elements while beefing up their consistency, nice work fellas) 5

4.3 (my review: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/78567/Murder-by-Death-The-Other-Shore/, one of the most unique releases from the year with a folk heavy base and tons of other influences piled on, the atmosphere and subtlety is great on this) 5

4.4 (a huge improvement from his earlier work, not so much in songwriting or originality, but in cohesiveness and production, this album works together in a way that makes it his best flowing output yet with several SOTY contenders, Album Art-OTY, folk-OTY) 5

4.4 (holy funk this is good stuff, like a modern EWF a la Spirit, ahhhhhh more people need to jam thisssss, admittedly the songwriting here is predictable and not the strongest suit of the album, but if this isn't the most fun vibing album of the year idk what is, several SOTY contenders, funkepop-OTY) 10

4.45 (some jazz albums make you want to move, some make you feel, still others make you think, this however is one of those rare gems that, through its extensive journey, takes you through each of those, jazz-OTY, actually picked this up on CD yesterday too, thanks NPR) 4

4.45 (2018 was the year for self-aware metal it seems, not quite as musically amazing as Slugdge but maybe more conceptually entertaining and much funnier, Darkness is near SOTY, thanks BallsToTheWall) 9